


The Christmas List

by unquietspirit



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Morbidness, Christmas, Fluff, M/M, WIP Amnesty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-25
Updated: 2014-05-25
Packaged: 2018-01-26 11:31:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1686779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unquietspirit/pseuds/unquietspirit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock is impossible to shop for, so John keeps a running list of ideas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Christmas List

**Author's Note:**

> Posted as part of WIP Amnesty 2014, and as such, will never be finished. It's been sitting on my computer so long I've completely forgotten how I was going to finish it anyway. Written after season one.

Sherlock is a hard man to buy a gift for. John has been wandering around the shops for over an hour now, and the best idea he has is _scarf_. It's not a bad idea, really. Sherlock likes scarves, and John quite likes the way Sherlock looks in scarves. He especially likes the way Sherlock looks in nothing _but_ a scarf.

Still, as a Christmas present it is lacking, somehow. Particularly as a Christmas present for their first Christmas together. He's fairly sure Sherlock doesn't care about things like that, but John does.

He finally decides to sleep on it and try again tomorrow. The hour is getting late, and Sherlock's been alone at Baker Street since this morning, when John left to go to the surgery. (Unless he's gotten a case, but John doubts that. Sherlock would've texted him.) They're in a dry-spell with cases that Sherlock deems worthy of his attention, and it's not advisable to leave a _very_ bored Sherlock unsupervised for long. The last time, he'd come home to find half of their possessions fashioned into a Rube Goldburg machine that filled the flat. He never did get Sherlock to tell him what it was meant to do.

As he leaves the shop, John pulls out his mobile and sends Sherlock a text. 

_Should I pick something up for dinner?_

The response comes promptly, as usual.

 _We have liver._ - _SH_

He stops in the middle of the pavement to read it, twice, and then types out his reply.

 _That's a_ human _liver, Sherlock._

(In case this fact was deleted from his so-called hard drive of a mind.)

 _Experiments conducted did not render it inedible._ - _SH_

John blinks and considers, briefly, asking Sherlock if he's ever eaten experimental leftovers before, then decides he'd really rather not know.

_No._

There is a longer pause before the reply this time, during which he imagines Sherlock rolling his eyes.

_Fine. Curry. -SH_

Which reminds him, he really must think about getting Sherlock a separate refrigerator for storage of body parts. It puts John off his morning tea when he has to retrieve the milk from behind someone's left cerebral hemisphere. ("It _can't_ be moved, John. It needs be kept at a very specific temperature or the fungus will spread.") Sherlock could put it in his old bedroom, which he had turned into a lab -- not bothering to stop using the kitchen, bathroom, and living room as labs, of course -- when they started sharing John's room (and  _that_  conversation with Mrs. Hudson hadn't been a bit awkward; she was positively smug to find she was right about them all along). It would really be more a present for him than for Sherlock, as Sherlock would be happy to continue putting toes in the ice-cube trays, but he decides to add it to his list anyway.

_Christmas gift ideas for Sherlock:_

_scarf_

_mobile (something with a full keyboard and a very good network. Did they make waterproof mobiles?)_

_refrigerator_

 

 

 

There is quite a loud _bang_ from the other room. John jumps and looks up from the newspaper to see smoke billowing from under the door, and then Sherlock opens it and emerges, coughing, as more smoke pours out. It is dense, dingy grey, and smells of fruit.

" _Sherlock?!_ " John says, standing in alarm.

Sherlock has crossed to the window and is shoving it open as he coughs. Tears are running down his cheeks. He sticks his head out and takes a few deep breaths before answering in a voice gone rough, not pulling his head back in. "Small explosion. Try not to breath the smoke."

John had already been covering his mouth and nose with the cuff of his jumper, but now he moves to the other window and yanks it open to put his head out as well. "What will it do?" he asks Sherlock across the three feet of wall between their respective windows.

"In small doses, just some minor lung and eye irritation."

"And in _larger_ doses?"

"Possibly lethal."

"What in bloody hell is it?" John demands.

"A variation on 2-chlorobenzalmalononitrile, but I hadn't finished it."

"You were trying to make a new kind of _lethal_ _tear gas?!_ "

"The point wasn't to make it lethal," Sherlock says, irritated. "It went wrong. I missed something. There's always _something_."

"Yes, but in this case the _something_ was possibly lethal, and in our flat!"

"It wouldn't be the first possibly lethal thing that has been in our flat."

That's hard to argue with, so instead John mentally adds an item to his list.

_Christmas gift ideas for Sherlock:_

_scarf_

_mobile_

_refrigerator_

_hazmat suit (high priority)_

 


End file.
